Ugh and Ugh!!

OK...so I haven't posted anything since the Cowgirls beat the Packers on Thursday night. In all honesty, it took me a couple of days to get over the sting. It's not that the Packers lost (I can handle that---every true Packer fan, although we don't like to lose, are used to losing), but it's that they lost to the COWGIRLS!!! There were many things about the game that were unfair. Basically, the Cowgirls' A-team had to play the Packers B-team because we had a couple of our key players injured. And then there was that hit to Brett Favre early in the 2nd quarter that put him out for the rest of the game. My stomach was sick! NOT BRETT!!! Now keep in mind that up until that point, Brett was not having the game of his life. He was trying to hard. Throwing passes he never should have thrown...only to go into the hands of the enemy and over the goal line for points. There are two silver linings to this loss as I see it. One is that anyone who doubted that Aaron Rogers will be a great QB for the Pack when Brett retires, well, I think they've probably changed their minds now. Aaron did an AWESOME job on Thursday night!! He showed that he's got what it takes to be a QB in the NFL. He played great under pressure (he even threw for his first 2 TDs in his NFL career). The team worked with him and really let him lead. So I have hope that the Packers won't descend to the mirey deep when Brett retires. The other silver lining is that if we do have to meet the Cowboys in the play offs, I'm pretty confident we can win. By then all of our guys will be healthy(God willing) and we can play the game we know we can play. So Cowgirls: BRING IT ON!!!

OK...enough about football.

Now on to the second UGH. We got snow yesterday. I hate winter!! It'd be great if I could stay cozied up by the fireplace with my family, but unfortunately, we still have to do the every day things in the winter. I did make it to church today, but the back roads were pretty slick at times. All of the people who have been wishing for a white Christmas got their wishes. I'm sure we won't see the ground again until mid-late June. hehehe OK...so it might be as early as April, but still, it'll be a long time before we see grass again. This is the time of the year I so miss living in the South.

Oh...and my Mom fell yesterday (there was a patch of ice under the snow that she didn't see...all because her landlord didn't bother plowing until later in the day). Fortunately nothing is broken. She, like Brett Favre, injured her elbow and her shoulder. Nothing serious, just inconvenient.

We took Hope to see Santa and Mrs. Claus yesterday (aka Grammy and Papa). She sat on Grammy's lap but didn't have anything to do with Santa until they took a break and he saw her in the hallway. Then she warmed up a little to him. I'll post pictures later. One of these days she won't be afraid of the big guy in the red suit.

One more thing. This is really exciting!! Mark got a new job. YEAH!!! He will soon be among the employed. He'll be working for the Thriven home office in Appleton, WI. When he went to interview for the job last week I was already starting to get stressed out about being a "single" parent and getting the house ready to be put on the market. For those of you not familiar with Wisconsin geography, Appleton is about 3.5-4 hours west of River Falls. It's near Green Bay. There would be definite advantages to moving there for sure, but like I said, I had NO idea how I was going to do all the every day things that need to be done AND get the house cleaned and ready to sell. The really good news: Mark will only be working in Appleton for a few months. They want to pilot this same program at the Minneapolis home office and they want him to be the lead. So we don't have to move after all. YEAH!!! It'll be really hard the next few months (especially on Hope), but ya gotta do what ya gotta do. It's a great job and from what Mark knows from when he used to work for Lutheran Brotherhood, he'll probably be able to retire (at least from that company) in 7-8 years. He's really looking forward to this new job (it's some type of a research job which is what he LOVES) and getting back to work for a company he's always loved. So it's a win-win situation. Thank you, Lord, for providing for our family.

One other bit of news before I go. We'll be registering Hope for pre-school come February. Can you believe it?? Didn't we just bring her home from the hospital?? There's a great pre-school in River Falls that she'll be going to. The teachers are all so, so good and they're friends of mine. We're hoping that we can get her in the Wed/Fri class because that'll work out best for my schedule at work. I had a dream the other night that I took her to pre school for the first time and as I left I just cried!! I'm sure that's exactly how it'll happen. Now we just have to get her potty trained AND able to be with someone other than Mommy. She'll probably cry the first few days, but hopefully that won't last for long.

Have a great day!! Thanks for checking in.